


When the Blurred Line Breaks

by Rinari7



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Angst, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Brief Mention of Past Dubcon Sexual Encounter (with John not Nikola), Denial of Feelings, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Mild Kink, Mild Mind Games, Mild Painplay, Mild Spoilers for 'Normandy' and 'The Five', Resolving of Sexual Tension that somehow doesn't actually resolve it, Smut, Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-27 11:17:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13879737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinari7/pseuds/Rinari7
Summary: On the run after Tesla's little stunt during World War 2, Helen and Nikola pose as a young Swiss couple. They’re good friends, comfortable with one another; surely they can handle this for just one more night… (No, no they can’t.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tinknevertalks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinknevertalks/gifts), [DownToTheSea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DownToTheSea/gifts).



> Dedicated to Vienna and Rach, for their lovely encouragement and enthusiasm for this fic.  
> I figured it was high time I finally put this up here instead of just on my tumblr (and yes, it _will_ be finished...).  
>  A double dose of thanks goes to Rach for beta'ing this monstrosity as well and listening to me rave about this and many other fics. You're the best.

Helen set her suitcase down beside Nikola’s at the foot of the simple four-poster bed almost too small for two, and smoothed down the rumpled, hand-sewn quilts atop it. Shedding her coat, she hung it up carefully on the back of the door and combed her fingers through her dark, recently-dyed hair. Her companion sighed heavily as he idly tapped the worn, heavy wooden dresser, and cast a rather disparaging glance at the mirror cloudy with age and with a few swipes of dust, as if it had been only hastily cleaned. “I  _suppose_  this will do.” His flawless French did nothing to hide his exasperation.

Helen shook her head, switching to English now that they were alone.“They’re being very generous letting us stay here, Nikola. The least you could do is  _seem_ grateful. Unless you’d prefer to camp outside again?” She glanced pointedly out the window, where the snow was falling even more heavily now, fat flakes catching on the windowsill.

“God, no.” He gave a shudder that was clearly exaggerated, considering he was still buttoned up in his long wool coat. “Really, Helen, hiding a vampire in the high Alps? I still can’t believe that’s your brilliant plan. You know I don’t do well in the cold.”

“It’s not as if you gave me much choice.” She shot him a cross glance, though by now this discussion was almost rote. “Switzerland is one of the few countries still neutral in this war. Or would you have preferred trying to pass the front in Africa? Or attempting to cross the Atlantic to South America?”

“Yes, actually.” He set his hands on his hips. “At least then I’d stand a chance of having ruins from one of the great civilizations nearby to study, pieces of my lofty ancestral history to occupy the long years of my impending exile.”

She rolled her eyes, shaking her head. “Well, it’s hardly  _my_  fault you decided to send plans for a  _deadly weapon_  to all parties already involved in one of the worst wars the world has ever seen. I’ve done the best I could on short notice. The safe house has a laboratory, so you won’t die of boredom, and we’ll be there tomorrow. Try for once to make yourself actually useful and stay out of trouble for a while.”

His hand flew to his sternum, a wounded gesture. “Helen, you know I had only the most noble of intentions.” There was some ironic undertone to his voice he rarely seemed entirely able to shake, no matter how earnestly he meant his words, like now.

“You’re not the only abnormal who needs help in times like these.” Her tone softened slightly, without her entirely intending it to. “I have many, many pressing matters demanding my time and attention. I could do without having to rush to your rescue again anytime soon.”

“And yet here you are, with me.” His tone lowered, and she swallowed as he took a step closer. “My dearest wife.” A broad, slightly sarcastic smile spread across his lips as he accentuated the last word.

She rolled her eyes again, though it was a bit flattering exactly how much delight he took in their ruse. “There’s no audience for you to play for in here, so you can drop the act.”

Something sad and soft flashed in his eyes, there and gone again so quickly she couldn’t properly identify it. “You never know what carries through the walls…” But he lifted his hands slightly, a gesture of surrender, and turned away to shed the coat, revealing his usual white collared shirt, waistcoat, and tie, somewhat rumpled from travel. He glanced down and frowned, pulling it straight and picking off a speck of lint.

Helen let out a slow breath, the familiar meticulous gesture prompting a wave of affection for one of her oldest friends. Stepping forwards, she laid a hand on his arm, only briefly. “Shall we go down for dinner?”

He offered his arm, as he had so often before —  _she stumbled out of the theater, nearly tripping on her skirt and holding on to Nikola’s elbow for balance, half-drunk from the champagne and laughing far too loudly at something he’d said and not caring a whit, and she didn’t quite dare believe that look in his eyes, slightly dazed and marveling and, yes, wanting, as his gaze lingered on her mouth, and she would never admit her own heart beat faster as she wondered what his lips might taste like, even as she guiltily remembered John —_

Helen shook away the memory and set her hand in the crook of his elbow. “I see you’ve decided to be a gentleman tonight.”

“And I see your tongue is especially sharp tonight.” He arched one eyebrow at her, his tone deliberately sarcastic. “If our hosts didn’t know better, they might think you didn’t actually like me.”

“Then we’ll fit right in as a married couple, won’t we?” Her cheeky smile prompted a wry one of his own.

“You always were such a romantic, Helen.”

_Flowers and a diamond ring from John, wine and a heavy compendium on known arthropods and their toxins from Nikola, given “just so I can borrow it from you later” with a wink… And a blue pendant that matched her eyes that she’d lied and told John she bought herself, though she always felt Nikola’s fingers at the nape of her neck when she put it on._

She tilted her head. “I’ve always found that best left to the men.”

Nikola laughed.

***

Their hosts were an elderly couple, in their sixties if not early seventies. Mathilde, the wife, still spry, flitted around the tiny kitchen like a little bird, putting the finishing touches on the meal — “Meat stew with potatoes, carrots, and onions,” Nikola murmured in her ear after a long, quiet inhale — and talked at least seventy miles a minutes in her heavy Schwiizerdütsch, seemingly heedless of whether or not she was actually listened to or understood. “We are so happy to have the pair of you here! It’s good to see young couples here once in awhile — my daughter and her husband moved to Bern for his work — he is a professor, you know, very well-known for his work in physics —” Nikola snorted quietly, and Helen elbowed him — “but we do not see them so much now, especially not with the war on, they cannot travel so easily. I miss seeing my grandchildren, two lovely grandsons I have, strong and healthy — have you seen the pictures? Dieter, show them the pictures! They sat for a photographer three years ago. You did not say you were expecting, did you?”

Helen didn’t let her difficulty following the torrent of words show on her face, but her replies were slow. “Oh, no, we’re not.” The little embryo frozen in the vault of the London Sanctuary, under James’ watchful care, flashed across her mind, and she glanced away. The cat dozing atop one of the bookcases yawned in her direction.

Nikola laid a hand around her waist, pulling her a little closer against him, and replied in near-perfect dialect, “We haven’t been married very long, my dear Sophie and I. And in times like these… We thought it best to wait. Insofar as one can with such things.” He brushed his lips to her hair, and for a moment she turned into the silently offered comfort. “Isn’t that right,  _ma chère_?”

Helen nodded, content for the moment to let him speak, and inhaled, resting her head briefly against his chest. She would miss him, these next few years, or even longer, perhaps, miss the way he seemed to always be able to read her, miss his optimistic curiosity, even miss his obnoxious company to distract her from her own thoughts when they took a melancholy turn, as seemed to happen more and more often these days. It was perhaps why she had allowed herself this week to take care of this particular mission personally — goodness knew her operatives, and Nikola himself, were more than capable — to say goodbye to him.

“But my parents are not so understanding. They had much to say about it this visit. I told my mother she ought to be content with my sisters’ children for now; God knows there are already six of them.”

Dieter, Mathilde’s husband, a stout, bearded man with an easy grin, stood from stoking the fire with a short bark of a laugh. “Oh, now you’ve made her jealous.”

“Over you, you old sack? Never,” Mathilde called from the kitchen, affection audible in her voice.

“Quite right, too: I’m stuck with  _you_!” he replied, an easy grin splitting his face, and gestured for Helen and Nikola to approach. “Come see the pictures.” He seemed to consciously slow his speech a little for Helen’s benefit; she offered him a smile of thanks. High German she knew, but the local, heavily accented dialect bore only little resemblance to the standard speech she was familiar with, even if she had been picking it up over the past several days.

“These are our daughter’s children. Benedikt was two —” he pointed to the slightly blurry cherub of a boy giggling at someone behind the camera —  “and Christoph was five.” The other boy was stocky already, the resemblance to Dieter obvious, but his serious, earnest expression couldn’t have been more different. “That was taken six years ago. Our son finally had a daughter a year ago, but we haven’t seen her yet. Mathilde is quite sad about that. It is a blessing for you you can travel at the moment. “

“My father is doing poorly,” Nikola lied smoothly, feigning stoicism, swallowing. “A disease of the lungs. It is not easy to travel, or cheap, but it was worth it to me. And I wanted him to have met my wife at least once.” He tightened his arm around her again, just a little, and she glanced up at him, catching a twinkle in his eye he suppressed quickly.

“Yes,” she added, “I was very happy to have met his family for the first time. I hope they felt the same.”

“They loved you, darling,” he drawled in French, his gaze dark and appreciative under hooded lids, and for a moment she thought he might actually kiss her. But he just pressed his lips to her temple, and her heart dipped a rib lower, for a split second.

“Food is ready!” Mathilde called from the kitchen.

The table was already set simply for four, a basket of rolls and salt and pepper shakers in the middle, and Mathilde ladled the stew into bowls and carried them to the table two at a time. Nikola pulled a chair out for Helen, and she thanked him with a small nod and a private, amused smile as he settled into the seat beside her and leaned in.

“Would it be terribly forward of me to rest my hand on my wife’s leg during the meal?” The tips of his fingers just barely brushed the fabric of her skirt, the whispered French words seeming to sear themselves into her skin with his heated breath on her ear.

“Yes, it would, Nikola, and you know it,” she responded, also in French, her tone equally low.

It was practically a rule by now — no unnecessary contact. They could touch, they could act for others, they could even share the bed because he wouldn’t hear of her sleeping on the floor but he was liable to shiver himself awake without the warmth of several blankets (and the warmth of her beside him, though he only ever mentioned that in that slightly ironic, solicitous tone that meant he could pretend he was joking and she could pretend she thought he was, too). But they didn’t kiss; they didn’t indulge in physical affection for its own sake, not beyond a peck on the cheek.  Nothing that might have implied them to be lovers.

It was something that had started in Oxford, toeing some invisible line, but they had never quite crossed it, even now that she was free of John, even now that the Sanctuary Network had more or less found its feet, even now that she suspected her lifespan might rival his — or perhaps precisely because of that.

He took her refusal with no ill will, drawing his hand back and sitting up straight as if nothing had happened at all.

Then Mathilde reached for her hand, to say grace, and Helen reached for Nikola’s. He shot her a disgruntled look, but he followed her lead nonetheless as she bowed her head. “Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ Our Lord,” Dieter recited quickly, rote, tacking on a quick, “And may You continue to bless this couple with safe travel. Amen.” Dropping his wife’s and Nikola’s hands, grabbing a roll, and picking up his spoon, he dug in.

Nikola glanced at Helen, lacing his fingers through hers and holding her hand several moments longer, his gaze practically daring her to say a word after he’d done that for her. His rocky relationship with religion — and with his late father the priest — was something she was well aware of, rockier even than her own. Their exploration of the bounds of science was far beyond what any church would ever dream of, let alone condone, and yet the wonder that their discoveries inspired was a sort of reverence in and of itself, she’d found, much like how she’d always felt in church at Christmas as a child. He didn’t feel similarly, rejecting all semblance of piety.

She mouthed him a quiet “ _merci_ ,” and, feeling almost daring, raised their joined hands to press her lips to his knuckles. His gaze immediately softened at the gesture.

They turned to their meal to find Mathilde watching them with interest. “Your husband is not much one for religion? Dieter is also not the most devout, but he is a good man, and one must take such men where one finds them.” She laid her hand on his leg, pausing for air.

Dieter glanced at her, his tone wry. “That almost sounded like a compliment, dear.”

Mathilde shook her head, running her hand up and down his leg. “Hush, you. You know I love you.”

He smiled to himself as he turned back to his food. “Love you, too.”

“Your husband seems like such a one as well, Sophie. And I remember Dieter learned to appreciate it a bit more over the years.”

Dieter didn’t comment on this. Helen took the opportunity to reach for a roll and begin eating. Nikola did the same, though not before murmuring, so quietly even Helen could barely hear him, “I feel like a prize pig.”

“I’m certain you’d come first in the show for dramatics alone,” she responded in kind.

He huffed and turned his attention to pretending he was actually hungry for the meal in front of them, seeming to savor each bite, though she knew he was just attempting to reduce the amount of it he would have to eat. It wasn’t that he couldn’t eat normal food anymore, but most solids other than raw meat turned his stomach, and with a few exceptions for his very favorite dishes, he only endured it when he had to — like now.

“And it’s sweet to see how he’s so very obviously in love with you.”

Helen stopped at those words, if only for a split second. Nikola was in lust with her, she mentally corrected, and it was just a habit more than anything else, the remnant of a schoolboy’s crush on the first pretty girl to pay him any attention. And he was a good actor, when he wanted to be. That was it. He was hardly in love — sometimes she wondered if he was even capable of that particular emotion. Absentmindedly, she ripped her bread to dip it in the broth, and then realized Mathilde had continued to speak, a certain glint in her eye.

“…reminds me of when Dieter and I were your age. He was quite smitten with me, and I — well, I found him handsome, but I didn’t dare give him the time of day for many months.” She paused, for a moment, eyeing them.

Helen felt Nikola shift beside her. “And then what happened? How did you bring her around?” His tone kept its ironic edge, ostensibly out of deference to Mathilde’s presence, but Helen understood it for the provocative little nudge to her it was.

Determined not to react to it, she lifted her next spoonful to her lips. The stew could have used more salt, but she was all too familiar with rationing, and it was otherwise good food, hearty and filling, which was more than she could say for their last two hurried meals.

“Only if you then tell how you became a couple,” Dieter answered with a grin. “Mathilde and I love hearing a good love story and it’s been too long since we’ve heard a new one.”

“That’s fair. But I think I’ll let Sophie tell ours.” Nikola’s grin was obnoxious, and Helen was tempted to set her hand on his thigh just to unbalance him again. She settled for a stern side glance, though she knew it would have no effect at all, and was proven right. “She could stand to practice her Schwiizerdütsch, isn’t that right,  _ma chère_?” He laid his hand on her arm briefly, swiping his thumb over her sleeve in some semblance of an affectionate gesture. “It has improved over the past weeks, but while we were staying with my parents I or my sister sometimes had to translate.”

“I’ve not often been to the German-speaking cantons,” Helen offered, tight-lipped, by way of attempted explanation. “My family is from Lausanne.”

“It’s understandable. Dieter and I speak no French — we have only ever left the village to visit our children’s families. Good that there are people like Nikolas here who speak both. I admire that ability.”

Nikola lifted one shoulder modestly. “It was a function of necessity. Sometimes a young man needs many kilometers and a few years’ worth of space from his parents, and I could not do that only speaking Schwiizerdütsch.”

“Yes, our son thought for a while about emigrating to Italy.” Dieter’s expression clouded, and he exchanged a glance with his wife. “We are very glad now that he did not.”

“That I can imagine.” As Helen finished the last of her roll and began to reach for another, Nikola set the remains of his own on her plate, without taking his eyes off of Dieter across the table. “I would be very concerned for any children living in a nation at war, as well. It is a blessing we are able to maintain our neutrality.”

Helen murmured Nikola her thanks, not missing Mathilde’s broad smile at the sight, though it was for far less altruistic reasons on Nikola’s part than the other woman likely assumed.

“It is indeed. We are not entirely spared the effects of war, but I am far less concerned than I would be if Anna or Ralph were living in France or Germany or Italy.”

“Anna and Ralph are your children, I assume?” Helen asked before she slipped another broth-soaked bit of bread into her mouth. Turning his head to look at her, Nikola followed the food past her lips with his gaze, meeting her eyes and then sliding his focus very deliberately back down to her lips again. She wrinkled her nose at him as she chewed, asking with a quick lift of an eyebrow what he thought he was playing at, whether that was really necessary. His grin broadened, and he tilted his head to indicate their hosts. She shook her head to herself. God, he really was playing this for all it was worth.

Nikola let his gaze linger on her mouth for several quick heartbeats longer; she swallowed, and when he locked eyes with her again she couldn’t help the smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

“— and Ralph is thirty-one, only a little younger than you, if I may guess?”

Helen realized slightly guiltily that she’d only been half-listening to what Mathilde had said. “Ah, yes, you guess correctly. And my  _Nicholas_  is even younger than I.” Helen dragged her attention from the vampire at her side back to their hostess, despite her instincts to the contrary. Playful, gleeful Nikola needed careful monitoring, experience had taught her.

“And how did you meet?” Mathilde asked, ripping another bit of bread off her roll.

Dieter mopped up the last of his stew and scooted his chair back slightly. “Stay with us a little bit longer before you retreat into a book for the evening?” Mathilde set a hand on her husband’s forearm, and he nodded quietly, smiling. She leaned over to peck him on the lips.

Waiting to speak until she had their hosts’ attention again, Helen watched the exchange. She swallowed. If she were honest, she missed that casual, comfortable sort of intimacy. But her life was quite full, thank you very much, and there was James back at the Sanctuary headquarters in London, even if he had returned from that bunker in Normandy far more worn and withdrawn, not entirely broken but with reaching cracks. And yet… they had been growing apart, she knew, even before Normandy, both of them far too similar to one another, and with the Sanctuary Network becoming more established, needing less of her constant time and attention…

The slight brush of fingers against her hand on the table drew her back from her thoughts, and she glanced at Nikola. The frank, honest offer in his gaze — of friendship, comfort, his own vulnerability — was something he granted even her only rarely. She must have let her mask slip more than she had thought. With a soft, grateful smile, she laced their fingers together, allowing herself one split second to bask in the way the touch of his cool skin warmed her like little else she’d felt in the past months.

With a deep breath, she turned her attention back to their hosts, who were now waiting on her with quiet, pleased smiles on their faces. If she were seventeen again, she might have blushed. “You need not stay on our behalf. You’ve already been more than generous, and we’re very grateful. We don’t want to disturb your nightly routine.”

“Oh, no, I’m enjoying the company.” Dieter settled back in his chair with a smile. “And I would love to hear your story.”

She didn’t exactly want to tell it, but she feigned a small smile nonetheless. “If you insist.” She glanced at Nikola, automatically, though they had both agreed to leave this part of their lies to her. Instead of the broad grin she expected, she found a quiet, attentive sort of longing in his eyes, one he quickly suppressed behind a smirk.

“Go on,  _ma chère_. You always tell it so well.” There was the Nikola she knew so well, and yet… She was glad she’d devised all of this in advance, because her mind wasn’t quite in it, haunted by her glimpse of that expression, her pronunciation awkward and halting.

“Well, my father is a tailor. He owns his own business, and  _Nicholas_  was — is still — my father’s accountant. I’d seen him a few times around the shop, of course. And I thought him handsome, in his own way —” For her own sake, she knew she shouldn’t look at Nikola, not right now, but the compulsion was practically magnetic. Their cover may have been a relevant reason, but it was only a feeble excuse for her gaze locking to his — and she found herself for once completely unable, or perhaps unready, to comprehend the look in his eyes. “His hair was always messy, then, from work. He used to run his fingers through his hair when he was concentrating —” She reached out to comb his hair up in the front, biting her lip fondly. He held perfectly still. “—And I don’t think he even realized it.”

“I hadn’t —” He swallowed. “I hadn’t realized I was doing it. I didn’t realize you liked it. Do I still do that?”

She nodded, inhaling, pressing her lips together to hide the soft, hesitant smile she could feel surfacing. Her fingers still rested intertwined with his, and she felt her heartbeats dancing sparks through her veins. They hadn’t been this close in a long while, not like this, not since Egypt, or perhaps Vienna, not since that time she had woken from a nightmare to find Nikola gently wrapping her in his arms, and had almost cried from relief.

Abruptly, she turned back to their hosts, clearing her throat. “I didn’t think he would be interested in me. I was already thirty when we met, older than him, rather beyond traditional marrying age —” She smiled wryly at Mathilde’s brief, frank look of surprise. “Perhaps you thought a previous husband died in the war. That’s not the case; I’ve simply always been… Well, rather particular, and a bit unconventional, I suppose.”

“She worked with her father, but on her own projects, her own creations,” Nikola broke in. “She’s very gifted.” His tone was matter-of-fact and she glanced back at him, surprised to hear praise of anyone on his lips. His frame stiffened, as though he could sense her gaze on him, but he continued speaking to the couple. “Innovative, brave, precise… beautiful. It was through her work I first fell in love with her. The depth of her imagination, and her daring… left me speechless.”

He glanced at her now, and the truth she saw in his eyes made her inhale sharply. Softly,  she squeezed his hand, and he nodded.

“I —” She broke her gaze away, but not looking back at their hosts just yet either. “It was at a local dance when he asked if I would dance with him.” She was not normally this ineloquent; he would likely tease her mercilessly later, and she focused on the story again. “When I thought he might actually be interested in me.”  _A sky-blue dress, heavy blonde curls down her back, standing on the sidelines and trying to not look too bored as she ran through equations in her head and the band played a reel, only here because John had asked her to be — but he was late. A gentle brush at her elbow, Nikola at her side, asking if he might have this dance — she wasn’t even aware he knew how to dance, obnoxious brilliant man with his working class upbringing and his head in the clouds so much of the time — herself agreeing because it would be better than standing and waiting alone. His touch a deft, sure guide through the steps — she couldn’t help but compare John’s somewhat heavy-handed fumbles — Nikola for once the perfect gentleman, an awestruck, parched look in his eyes that made heat rise in her cheeks…_

“We spoke more often after that,” she murmured. “And then he asked —” Another glance at him, as she drew in a deep breath, suddenly needing air. “He asked if he might court me.”

“Good old-fashioned gentlemen are hard to come by these days.” Mathilde nodded as if to punctuate her own point, her hand now resting on her husband’s back. “I’m sure you said yes.”

“Not at first.” A tight smile on her lips, Helen determined to keep her eyes on their hostess for the rest of the story. “I wasn’t sure — I’d had a previous beau who was — far less than the man I thought he was.” Dieter frowned briefly, Mathilde clucked her tongue in sympathy, but it was the quiet brush of Nikola’s thumb over the back of her hand that she noticed most. “But we worked together, and he respected me, and made me laugh, and I finally realized… If I wanted to be with anyone at all again, properly — I wanted it to be him.” Exhaling, she pressed her lips together, and tried to smile. That had sounded more like a confession than she had really meant for it to; she and Nikola weren’t — they wouldn’t work, not like that —

Nikola unlaced his fingers from hers; she looked at him, almost startled. A delighted glint in his eye, he tucked a small strand of hair behind her ear, letting his fingers linger on that sensitive spot on the side of her neck, and she shivered.

“You don’t have to play quite so much,” she murmured to him in French, but the intended rebuke was absent from her tone.

Still, he seemed to have heard it anyways; he sat up a little straighter, letting his hand fall, the French sliding slightly sharply from his tongue. “I’m not always playing, H—” He stopped himself from using her name just in time. “Was  _all_  of that a lie?”

“Nikola…” She herself wasn’t sure if it was a plea or a reproach.

The scrape of chair legs on the wooden floor sounded somehow too loud in her ears, and she glanced over to Mathilde beginning to gather up the dishes. “Oh — let me help!”

“No, no, sit with your husband. You are our guests!”

Nikola was already rising, though, handing Mathilde his bowl with a quiet smile, and reaching for Helen’s to give her as well. She passed it to him, standing herself. “Are you sure? You cooked already. I’d like to help clean up.”

Mathilde stopped a moment to look at her, a shrewd glint in her eye. “If you really want to, thank you for the help.”

“I would.” Helen smiled at her, gathering up the last of the dishes from the table and following her into the kitchen.

Behind her, she heard the chair being pushed back in against the table and Nikola’s voice, “Yes, I’ve always been good with numbers. And what is it you do?”


	2. Chapter 2

“You two are all right?” Mathilde asked quietly, as she set the dishes in the small, chipped ceramic sink.

“Oh, yes.”  Helen busied herself with plugging the sink, turning on the tap and adding dish soap to the water. “We are just…” She cast about for some possible explanation for their behavior just now, regret seeping over her that she’d let her own feelings interfere with Nikola’s safety, even if it was unlikely their path would be traced here. “I am still becoming used to his being so affectionate with me, in public.” She picked a sponge and one of the bowls, dunked both in the soapy water, and began scrubbing. “It embarrasses me sometimes.” She glanced over at Mathilde who was waiting with a dishtowel, listening expectantly, openly. Helen would likely never see her again, and so she allowed the confession to slip out: “I am sometimes afraid — I do not always believe it to be true, in my heart. That he loves me. It is ridiculous, I know. We are married, and he shows me every day,” she added, aware of their precarious cover, “But I still cannot help but worry. I am not young, and I will not always be pretty, and I am not even a very good cook…” She let out a quick, self-deprecating laugh. “And so I am not always good at showing my affection in return, which I am sure hurts him as well.”

After dunking the bowl once more and swirling it around, Helen handed it to Mathilde to dry and put away, avoiding her eyes as she started scrubbing another.

Mathilde turned the bowl in her hands deftly under the towel. “Oh, Sophie. The man worships you. It is in his eyes whenever you are not looking, and sometimes when you are.” She opened a cabinet, setting the bowl inside and leaving it open for the moment, as she took the next bowl Helen handed her. “He touches you so tenderly, and it is plain he knows you without trying. My Dieter was just like him when we were younger. He thought the stars shone in my eyes, and look at us now. I would not wish for another man, or another life.” She rose slightly on her tiptoes to push the bowls towards the back of the cabinet as she set the third in front of them. “It may sound like an old wives’ saying, but it’s true: life is too short not to allow yourself to love, or to be loved.”

Helen exhaled a ghost of a laugh. Her life wouldn’t be short at all, in all likelihood; already she was older than this kind woman. And yet, perhaps her words were even more relevant because of it. It wasn’t often that Helen thought of the centuries, possibly millennia stretching out before her, except in a positive light: she would be able to continue her work for a long time to come. But Nigel had already come close to death once, only a blood transfusion from Helen — against her better judgement, under threat of Nikola giving him his — bringing him back to his current youthful appearance. Last time they’d met, though, she’d recognized the world-weary look in his eye, and she doubted he would consent to such a procedure again. James’ machine worked wonders, but when it began to wear down… And his time in that bunker had aged him, it seemed, aged him and damaged the device. He wheezed, sometimes, still, when he thought she wasn’t listening, the noise bringing back that terrible night with far too much vividness. And suddenly, aside from Nikola, those centuries seemed likely very lonely.

Mathilde gently took the well-scrubbed bowl from her hands, and gestured to the spoons. Helen offered her a tight, slightly embarrassed smile.

“A penny for your thoughts?”

Helen swallowed, picking up the silverware. “Only that you’re right, I suppose.”

“Mothers always are.” Mathilde winked at her. “One day, when you have children yourself, you’ll see.”

Opening her mouth to protest, Helen thought the better of it, settling for a tilt of her head that belied a little of her skepticism.

Pulling open the silverware drawer as Helen finished the spoons, Mathilde remarked offhandedly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think you were a couple just begun courting, instead of husband and wife.”

Helen’s heart leapt into her throat, and she opened her mouth to protest.

“—But you know one another too well.”

“I — I suppose I’m not being fair to him,” Helen admitted, tasting unfamiliar words, yet they carried a ring of truth — perhaps too loud of one. “My — previous beau —” she wouldn’t say  _Jean_ , “He hurt me very deeply, and I now wonder if he ever really loved me — or anyone — at all. But it’s not fair to  _Nicholas_  to think he will be the same.” But he was always so bloody blasé about his affections, about everything, teasing, except when he apparently wasn’t. And she never could quite tell when was which.

She offered the now-clean spoons. Taking them, Mathilde laid a hand on her arm. “The man would move the stars and bring back the dead for you, if he could, I am certain of it.” She tilted her head towards the living room. “Go to him. I will bring out the dessert in a moment. Apfeltorte. I baked it myself this morning, though it is not so sweet as it normally ought to be.”

Helen smiled. “It sounds delicious.”

***

Nikola and Dieter were seated in opposite armchairs in the small room that served as a study, holding an animated discussion on, as best she could follow, Goethe’s  _Faust_. Something about whether or not knowledge brought happiness, and the symbolism of the devil, whether or not the girl truly made Faust happy or fulfilled…

Helen hung in the doorway for a moment and watched as Nikola gesticulated animatedly with one hand, absently petting the dozing cat in his lap with the other. “The failing wasn’t in his search for knowledge, or for companionship — it was in seeking them separately, in rejecting knowledge as he sought out happiness. Companionship alone —” Nikola shook his head. “I could not live that way. Learning is too valuable to me. But knowledge alone is… a lonely path. Easily misguided, too.” Helen wondered if that was a hint of a confession in his tone.

Dieter laughed. “We cannot all find women who are both intelligent and good wives.”

Nikola smirked. “I never claimed happiness was simple to achieve.” A short pause, and then, “You seem to have found it, though.”

Dieter nodded. “Mathilde may not know her sums very well, but she is intelligent in other ways, and a good wife. We are very happy.”

“Anyone can see that.” Nikola offered him a smile, with only the barest touch of wryness to it, one even she wouldn’t be able to pick up on if she hadn’t known him for so long.

Helen cleared her throat and stepped into the room, gesturing back towards the dining area. “Mathilde says there will be an apple tart soon, for dessert.”

Dieter stood, grinning. “Good. It’s been tempting me all day and she wouldn’t let me near it!” He raised his voice for the latter portion of the sentence, directing it towards the kitchen. Startled, the cat leapt off of Nikola’s lap, leaving him looking momentarily bereft.

“Of course not, otherwise it would already be gone!” Mathilde yelled back, the clink of dishes and silverware being set on the table accompanying her words.

“Every pastry’s proper place is inside stomachs,” he answered as he made his way over to her, and dropped a kiss on her lips.

Helen watched their fond exchange with a smile on her face, then turned to Nikola, swallowing, lowering her voice, switching to French. “I may be a bit more affectionate during dessert. Mathilde is… perceptive.”

“You’ve been holding back on me? Ma chère, I’m hurt.” He pressed a hand to his chest, though the sarcastic tone to his murmur gave him away. Still, there was a curious, intent sort of light to his eyes, and she’d learned that particular smile playing on his lips meant they were playing with fire.

“Don’t get any ideas.” It was automatic, the rebuttal, and she regretted the words as soon as they left her lips. Fine way to return to properly pretending they were married. Of course a man had ideas about his wife, and Nikola had a particularly clever, devious mind — she cut that train of thought off where it stood, though it didn’t keep heat from rising under her collar. Helen grabbed his hand to lead him to the dining room, but he stayed where he was, drawing her to him instead. “Shall I still ‘not play quite so much’?” He drew out the low words, an ironic lilt to them that sounded almost painful, bringing his other hand up as if to lay it on her cheek, but not quite touching, hovering, waiting.

She flicked her gaze away from his, her heart pounding. “Play as much as you like.”

He brushed his thumb over her cheek, his touch feather-light, then dropped his hand. “What do you want, Helen?”

A moment, she wavered, the question seeming to echo in her head. Somehow, her life was so very rarely about what she wanted — what the world needed, what Abnormals needed, what the Sanctuary needed — and it was what she needed, too, her work, her purpose in life, but what she  _wanted_  —

He exhaled, slowly, into the silence between them, and it sounded like a noise of defeat as he glanced past her, to the couple in the other room. “I could just… promise to make their lives miserable if they said anything.” He lifted a shoulder, his tone so deliberately casual. “Almost as enjoyable as this, and I’m told I have a knack for it.” He glanced pointedly down at her, a wry, self-deprecating smile playing on his lips.

“Nikola…” She shook her head. “One more night, and then you’re safe, provided you don’t do anything stupid again.” Carefully, she her hand on his chest, and almost dared think she could feel his heartbeat under her palm, quick and heavy.

“That’s hardly an answer.” It was so soft she could barely hear him.

Inhaling, she brushed her thumb over his lapel, and met his eyes for a brief moment before avoiding them again. “I said to play as much as you like, didn’t I?”

His hand trapped hers on his chest, his tone low and intent as he sought her gaze with his. “Only play?”

Swallowing, she trailed her hand down his arm to grasp his hand, and began walking backwards towards the door. The smile building on her lips broadened as his eyes darkened and his expression lit up. A small shock jumped from his palm to hers, and she shivered in sudden excitement, biting her lip. 

“Control yourself, Nikola,” she murmured. But there was something seductive about the idea of making him lose just a little control. It wasn’t often she gave in to her impulses, but she didn’t have to return to the life of Dr. Helen Magnus, leader of the Sanctuary Network, until tomorrow, and few did playful better than Nikola Tesla.

One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Oh, you very much underestimate my self-restraint.”

She laughed. “You? Self-restraint?”

“I know, I know, it’s hard to believe.” That little quirk of his lips broadened into a full-blown ironic smile, but it seemed something more lurked behind his eyes. Under his gaze, she sucked in a sudden inhale, her skin tingling, and still felt breathless.

“How large of a piece do you want, Nikolas?” Helen turned to see Mathilde poised with a knife over the tart, watching them expectantly.

Helen caught the edge of a grimace he turned into a smile. “Only a very small piece, please. I do have to keep my dashing figure up for my darling wife, after all.” He winked down at Helen, settling his hands on her waist and gently turning her to face the table, wrapping his arms around her and nuzzling her hair.

“Nonsense,” Mathilde muttered, more to herself than anyone else, as she cut into the pastry. “You’re as thin as a rail.”

Helen leaned back against him. There was something about his solid presence she enjoyed, the crisp, crackling scent of electricity under his dash of cologne so very familiar, dare she say even comforting.

Mathilde levered Nikola’s slice onto his plate — it was rather larger than Helen suspected he really wanted — and looked expectantly at her.

“Medium-sized, please.”

“Like so?” Mathilde held the knife over the pie to indicate where she would cut.

“Yes, that’s perfect, thank you.” Helen smiled, swaying back against her companion. He unfolded his arms from around her to grasp her hips again, but not before she felt his erection pressing against her backside.

He took a small step backwards, straightening, and gripped her hips a little more tightly, to keep her where she was. His French a touch sheepish, he muttered, “I didn’t mean — it’ll be gone in a while.”

Now that her moment of consternation was past, she bit her lip, more than a little elation shooting through her. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Nikola,” she murmured, feeling a hint of a laugh bubbling up between her words. “I’m a doctor, remember? I know how male anatomy works — I’ve seen it before.”

He exhaled. “Well, that took care of it.”

She did laugh, then.

Mathilde set each plate at their place on the table, forks already laid out beside them, and settled into her own chair. Acutely aware of her eyes trained on them, Helen stepped away from Nikola to take her place as well. “Pardon us. My husband and I —” Switching back to hesitant Schwiizerdütsch, she cleared her throat, glancing at Nikola as he sat down beside her, feeling a smile spreading over her lips again. “We sometimes…”

“Get carried away?” Dieter supplied helpfully, his fork already halfway to his mouth.

“Yes.” Helen nodded, slicing a bite-sized tip off her piece of tart.

“You said you hadn’t been married long, right? We remember what it’s like to be newlyweds. “ He winked at his wife.

Mathilde grinned, and elbowed him. “All this complaining about how I wouldn’t let you near your tart, and now you’re not eating it!”

“Just you watch, mein Schatz.” He popped the bite into his mouth, winking at her again, and immediately sliced off another.

Mathilde shook her head fondly at him.

Helen let the tart flake in her mouth; it was still delicate, the combination of cinnamon, apple, and a hint of vanilla more than making up for the lacking butter and sugar, and she savored it. “This is excellent, Mathilde,” she said, after swallowing, “Thank you.”

Mathilde beamed. “Thank you. It was my mother’s recipe.”

Nikola nodded his agreement. “It’s very good. Far better than what my dear Sophie can do, though she tries.” He winked at her. “Last I heard,  _Marie_  won’t let you into her kitchen anymore?”

Remembering the last time the little pixie had shooed her out of the Sanctuary kitchens and food storage, chittering, “No! No more fires, King James needs good food, not crispy food. Out!” Helen huffed a wry laugh.

“Thank you very much,  _Nicholas_.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “Even if it is true. A — friend of mine, well, I’ve burnt a few too many things on her stove, it seems.” She hadn’t exactly been upset to leave the cooking to the little Abnormal, though, even if Mary sometimes did have trouble moving things on her own, and had to enlist the help of other residents, some of whom inevitably got hair in the food.

Helen couldn’t resist a quick stab back at Nikola, though, murmuring in French, “I can still use a Bunsen burner better than you.”

He shot her a disgruntled look, and chewed fiercely, responding as soon as he was able. “Yes, well, my forté isn’t modern-day potion brewing.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Yes, well, that ‘modern-day potion brewing’ is what gave you those powers you seem to like so well, in case you’d forgotten.”

“… when I was learning to cook as well, Sophie.” Mathilde smiled. “You’ll get there eventually.”

Helen glanced down at her plate, realizing she’d only been half-listening to Mathilde again. What was it about Nikola that could make her forget anyone else in the room? She nearly snorted to herself — he’d probably make some wisecrack about “natural magnetism.”

“I certainly hope so,” was all she said aloud, slicing another bite of her tart and bringing it to her mouth. To be fair, cooking was not so very high on her list of necessary skills, and she really wasn’t so bad as all that — assuming she didn’t get called away in the middle to an urgent meeting or to process a new arrival or to any of the thousand and one things that still clamored for her attention some days.

“I’d be happy to show you a few tricks, if you like.”

“Oh! That’s very kind of you to offer, but I’m afraid we’ll need to be leaving first thing tomorrow morning. I doubt we’ll even stay for breakfast. We were hoping to be home before any snow.” She glanced pointedly out the window, where the flakes were still drifting slowly down. “And we don’t want to be snowed in.”

“If it’s still snowing tomorrow, you’re welcome to stay,” Mathilde offered, setting her fork down onto her empty plate.

Helen glanced at Nikola. “I think we’ll try to make our way home either way.” She slipped the last bite of her own slice of tart into her mouth.

“If you’re sure…” Mathilde stood, picking up her plate and reaching for Helen’s as well. “Are you finished?”

“We’re sure. And yes, I am finished, thank you.”

Mathilde nodded as she carried them both into the kitchen. Dieter was levering a second piece onto his plate, whereas Nikola picked at the remains of his. She set her hand on his arm, brushing her thumb over his sleeve. “You don’t have to eat all of it,” she murmured, the French quiet on her tongue, “Just say you’re full.”

“And lie?” His lips twitched up into their usual smirk. “Ma chère, you’re such a bad influence.”

She arched her eyebrows at him, and reached over with her fork to spear a bite off his plate, slipping it it into her mouth with a broad grin.

He tsked in mock affront. In retaliation, she stole another.

“I thought you said you were done.” He mock-growled, wrapping an arm around her waist and dragging her closer.

She let out a small noise of surprise, hooking her ankle around one leg of her chair so she wouldn’t entirely fall off. But in the face of Nikola’s strength, she ended up just pulling the chair with her up against his side.

“Careful, Nikola!” But she was laughing into his neck, as he nuzzled her hair. Shaking her head, she straightened to look at him, a smile still playing on her lips. “God, you’re such a —” She stopped, casting about for the word, and found none.

“Dashing genius? Loveable rogue?” He smirked, but there was almost a hint of fear lurking behind his eyes, and it made something inside her clench.

She shook her head. He was simply Nikola…

His smirk turned pained, though she could tell he tried to hide it, and he unwound his arm from around her waist.

“No, Nikola.” She trapped his hand on her hip, reaching out to cup his neck. “You’re simply… infuriatingly indescribable.”

“Of course words can’t capture my greatness.” He swallowed, then, his next question quiet, and if it were anyone else she would have called it hesitant. “Good indescribable?”

On an impulse, she shifted in her seat, rising slightly to kiss his cheek. He shifted, though, too, in that instant, and she bumped her nose against his jaw.

“Hold still,” she murmured, already tilting her head to try to kiss him again.

Ever contrary, Nikola turned his head yet again, this time towards her, and she found his lips pressed to hers.

He let out a small noise of surprise, tightening his grip on her hip, his eyes wide. It could hardly be called a kiss, without finesse and so very brief, both of them drawing back after only a split second.

Helen sucked in a breath, her lips tingling, unconsciously drawing her tongue over them. Nikola swallowed, his gaze darting down to her mouth. She glanced over to Dieter, who was observing them almost disinterestedly, a small smile on his face, as he finished his second slice.

“Ma chère, you really must warn me before you kiss me like that.” Nikola’s voice was rough, even as he drawled out the French words. “I promise I’m a much better kisser when I know I’m about to be kissed.”

With another glance at Dieter, Helen inhaled, slowly, as she fixed her gaze back on Nikola. Her attention seemed to drift naturally down to his lips, which she very nearly thought a touch pinker than normal.

“Very well, then.” It came out hoarse, quiet, and she cleared her throat. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

Leaning into her, he tilted his head slightly, watching her, waiting for her to close the last sliver of space between them.

Helen closed her eyes, and kissed him.

He was gentle, almost chaste, sliding his lips against hers, but a spark — she wasn’t sure if it was literal or metaphorical, and didn’t particularly care — danced through her, and she felt more than heard his sharp gulp of air. A small noise of appreciation slipped through her lips, and she drew him to her more firmly with the hand on the back of his neck, fisting his lapel with the other as his hands slid to her lower back. He opened his mouth slightly, drawing his tongue along the seam of her lips, not probing, not asking entry, just tasting, appreciating. She opened her mouth to him anyways, just before he drew away, leaving her feeling more than a little bereft.

He held her to him, practically half atop his lap, his gaze hooded as he looked down at her. Her heart galloped against her ribcage as she held his gaze: one moment, two, then he cleared his throat and glanced over at their audience, loosening his grip on her. Helen ducked her head slightly, shifting to sit back on her own chair, swallowing. They’d put on quite the spectacle, and she was faintly embarrassed.

“I think… I think my wife and I should retire for the night.” Nikola clasped her hand, squeezing it. She squeezed back, slowly, bringing her breathing under control.

“That might be wise.” Dieter sounded distinctly amused, though he kept his tone courteous. “A good night to you both.”

“A good night to you, too.” Helen stood with Nikola, and it was she who led the way upstairs.


	3. Chapter 3

Her heart still pounded, no longer racing but each beat heavier, somehow more significant, as they mounted the stairs in silence, Nikola’s hand for once almost warm in hers. Her thoughts skittered away from what would happen once they were behind that bedroom door, fled back to the feeling of Nikola’s lips on hers, every bit as intoxicating as she had suspected so many years ago. Behind them rang the faint clink of dishes and Dieter’s rolling laugh.

She opened the door for both of them; he shut it, slowly, the  _click_  of the latch almost heavy, overly loud. Backing towards the bed, letting their arms stretch between them, Helen watched him, her breath catching in her throat. For a long moment, Nikola gazed at their joined hands, clasping hers between both of his, then unlaced his fingers from hers.

“Nikola?” she asked, uncertain, her voice rasping over the back of her throat as he stared out the window, and went to draw the curtains. “Don’t you — do you want this?”

“What is ‘this’?” His voice was low as he turned to face her, almost softer than she thought he was even capable of, and it unnerved her just a little.

“Really? Now you choose to play the fool?” Damn infuriating man, with his innuendos and longing looks and now this. Yet despite her words,  there was no edge to her voice. She crossed the room, reaching out to tentatively set her hands on his chest. “If you have to ask that…”

He laid his hands over hers, clasping them. The gesture didn’t quite reassure her. “Kiss me, Nikola,” she murmured, in English now, and it was practically a plea.

He did, still so gentle she first felt only his breath on her lips, then soft pressure. She let out a small noise of frustration, pressing her lips to his harder, reaching out to tug on his lapels. He broke apart from her, resting his forehead against hers, gently brushing her nose with his. His breathing was as heavy as hers, but she felt almost lonely, a little injured.

“If you don’t want this, say so,” she bit out.

He loosened one hand from hers, wrapping one arm around her to tug her lower body against his. Arousal coursed through her at the evidence of his; lashes fluttering, she locked her gaze to his, and tilted her head up to kiss him again.

Only a quick brush he allowed, before he pulled back again. She huffed. “Nikola…”

“Just… promise me you won’t regret this in the morning, Helen. You won’t pull back from me. Please.” He swallowed, and she mirrored him, the depth of emotion in his eyes pulling the ground out from underneath her.

“Me? You’re the one constantly holding back.” She stepped back, his arm around her falling back to his side. “You’re always hiding behind sarcasm or obnoxious comments, and now when I do want to take you up on it —” She shook her head in exasperation, though she kept her voice down, mindful of the others in the house. “And who was it who left for another bloody continent? I’m starting to think you never were serious.”

He turned again, letting his palms fall to the windowsill, gripping the ledge until the knuckles of his thumbs turned white. Sighing, she lifted a hand to set it on his back, and then let it drop again.

His voice was low, intense, when he finally did speak. “Yes, I left for America, because I owned up to my feelings for you, Helen. And I saw you weren’t interested, so I thought I’d spare us both. But you were the one who ran after Egypt, right back to the Sanctuary and into James’ arms. Just the hint of getting closer to me, and you just… take off.”

Shock froze her, for a brief moment, then she exhaled, harshly. “I had  _work_  to do! Important work, that I’d put off to go searching for ancient vampire kings with you!”

He glanced sideways at her, letting go of the windowsill, straightening. “After Vienna, too. Not a word, for two years.”

_Falling asleep curled up to his side, waking to find his arms around her and his head resting on hers in a way that sure to leave a crick in a human’s neck. Breakfast in bed, him persuading her to go out and see the sights, trying with his unfailingly sharp wit to distract her from her grief, until something would remind her of the father who wasn’t coming back, and she’d retreat to their room again, falling apart, a red-eyed mess. His hand on her back, his fingers on her arm, never even approaching untoward, his thumb brushing over her skin feather-light, as though she were made of spun glass._

With James she did business, not sentiment, even though they did care for one another; on a whim, she’d asked Nikola to meet her on the steps of the Karlskirche. And he had.

A touch of guilt stealing over her, she pressed her lips together, a grimace. “What did you want me to do, send flowers as a thank-you?”

Nikola inhaled, deeply. “I came back here, not only because of this infernal war, but because you asked me to. ‘ _You haven’t seen what atrocities these men are capable of_ ,’” he quoted her letter back at her, word for word. “ _‘I don’t often beg, but consider me as begging now. If anyone can crack their codes, Nikola, it’s you. You could save so many lives — human and Abnormal. Please return to England, even if only for this._ ’” He turned back towards the window. “Well, you have me, your codes are cracked, your communications secured. And now I’m being foisted off somewhere far away from you again.”

She opened her mouth for a rebuttal, but he held up his hand. “I know, I know, it’s hardly your fault. And I’m happy to have helped put dozens if not thousands of Nazis into their graves. But I can’t help wondering if you’d be so eager — if I were going to be sticking around for a while.” He met her eyes for a brief moment, then looked away.

Pressing her lips together, Helen shook her head. “I — Nikola, I don’t do —” She gestured helplessly, a frustrated sort of fury rising in her she did her best to tamp down. One night, because she felt like it, because it felt like practically decades of foreplay had finally come to a head, because no, she wasn’t above carnal lust  — but most of all because he was dear to her, and she wanted to say goodbye. She didn’t want to argue, not tonight. “What do you want from me?”

This was why she liked being with James. He was so very uncomplicated — even if he never made her heart race like her confusing, obnoxious vampire.

“Does this mean —” He exhaled, heavily, and tugged on the cuffs of his sleeves. “What is this to you, Helen?”

Her breath caught in her throat, shock flashing down her spine, as he searched her expression. “Nikola…” She shook her head slightly, glancing away, searching for words she never found. There were precious few things she didn’t care to examine closely, but this was one of them. Why must he ask? “I can’t give you an answer I’m not certain of myself.” Helen met his eyes once again, and he nodded, exhaling softly.

“All right.” His words were not melancholy, per se, but measured, the usual quirk to his lips noticeably absent.

She reached out to touch his arm, curling her fingers around his wrist. “I do care about you. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

He nodded, again, silently.

“Did you ever consider that I  _am_  going to miss you?” She stepped forwards to cup his jaw, leaning in, and softly kissed his cheek. For a moment, he simply looked at her — an entire conversation somehow passing between them, though she couldn’t have told what they said even if she had wanted to.

Then he straightened his waistcoat, clearing his throat, and grinned. “Far be it from me to deny a lady’s — well, I hope it’s hardly your  _last_  request, but maybe your last of me for a while.” There was the playful Nikola she knew, and for a moment she wondered if she had merely imagined the soul-searching looks of only seconds ago. This Nikola she could handle.

Helen hummed noncommittally, stepping in close, intertwined elation and arousal surging through her. “You know, Nikola, sometimes you talk entirely too much. We could have been well on our way to shagging by now.” She set her hands on his chest again, slowly sliding them down, opening his buttons one by one.

He laughed, wryly, resting his hands on her hips. “And far be it from you to be subtle.”

“When I have no reason to be?” She slipped her hands under his jacket and around to his arse, pulling them together. He was half-hard against her, and she hummed again, pleased. Swaying against him, she kissed him again, finishing with a little nip to his lower lip.

“Is that how you want this?” He inhaled, nuzzling at her neck, kissing, nibbling, almost immediately finding that spot right beside her shoulder that made her shudder.

“Yes,” she breathed, pulling him to her again. “No — don’t break skin.” She tilted her head, nudging his head aside to tug on his earlobe with her teeth. “But anything else is fine.”

In a sudden show of strength, he lifted her up, and she let out a small noise of surprise and wrapped her legs around his waist.  Turning, he trapped her between him and the wall, drawing her hands above her head. “Anything?” It was half a growl, sending delicious shivers down her spine.

“I meant what I said, Nikola,” she panted, staring him in the eye. “I’m not going to regret you.”

Her words seemed to paralyze him, for a second, for two, as her heart drummed against her ribs and she wondered if it had been the wrong thing to say. Then he kissed her, hard, open-mouthed, messy and so very wanting.

She opened to him immediately, sliding her tongue along his. As soon as he let go of her hands, she wrapped one arm around his shoulders, threading her fingers through his hair.

He was moving, away from the wall, one hand on her lower back, an anchor, as she devoured the taste of him. Her world tilted, and she clung to him as he lowered her to the bed. Breaking for air, she laid back, taking him in as he braced himself above her, running her fingers through his hair.

With one hand, he tried to unwind her legs from his waist. “Let me go,  _dušo moja_ ,” he murmured, fondly, “if you want to do anything besides kiss with our clothes on.”

A little reluctantly, she let her feet fall to the mattress. “What did you just call me?” His native language wasn’t one of the ones she had mastered, not yet.

“It’s an endearment.” He kissed down her neck to her collarbone, occasionally dragging his teeth over her skin, drawing another hum of pleasure from the back of her throat as he unlaced her boots.

“Well, I’d  _hoped_  it wasn’t a curse.” It was almost automatic, to arch an eyebrow at him, as she ran her nails gently over his scalp, down the back of his neck, and back up. “What does it mean? I assume  _moja_  is similar to Russian, my, but my what?”

“You know translations don’t always bring across the meaning well,” he muttered against her skin, tugging first one boot off, then the other.

She bit her lip. “Try anyway?”

But he was kissing her again, taking his time, every so often swiping his tongue out to taste her lips, as he fumbled one-handed with the buttons of her blouse.

Letting out a small noise of frustration, she set a hand on his chest, signaling him to sit up, as she did the same. “Let me.”

“Don’t let me to hinder you.” He watched, his scientist’s eye seeming to make note of every detail of her as she made quick work of her buttons, and he shed his own waistcoat and tie almost as an afterthought as she peeled off her blouse. Her lingerie was nothing particularly eye-catching — it wasn’t as if she’d been intending to seduce anyone when she’d dressed this morning — but Nikola didn’t seem to care. She even preened a little for him, stretching her neck and rolling her shoulders, watching him out of the corner of her eye and relishing the way his tongue darted out over his lips.

When she reached for the button of her skirt, he reached for her hands. “May I?”

She nodded, moving to the edge of the bed, bending down to set her boots on the floor. He drew her skirt gently, almost reverently off her — then he tossed it without looking onto the bed in the general vicinity of her blouse, and she smirked at the thought of Nikola being reverent towards anything or anyone.

“I wondered if you weren’t wearing a girdle.” He arched his eyebrows at her, trailing his fingers along the edge of her sheer stockings and up the ribbon of one of her garters. “But I didn’t quite dare ask.”

She tilted her head, warmth pooling in her abdomen, and tension gathering in her muscles as he traced patterns known only to him up the insides of her thighs. “You might have guessed I would forego such things. Dear God, Nikola, if you don’t stop teasing me…”

Nudging her legs apart, he knelt in front of her, gently biting the insides of her thighs in between his words. “You’ve — been — teasing — me — all — night.” The last was harder, a sharp nip, and Helen sucked in a breath as the sensation sparked its way up her leg to add to the wetness beginning to pool in her knickers.

“And imagine, I wasn’t even trying.” She smirked down at him, purposely letting her knees fall further to the sides. Given his vampiric senses, he couldn’t possibly be unaware of how aroused she was, but —

He mouthed her through her knickers, pressing against her entrance, then moved up to tongue her clit. Letting her head fall back, she propped herself up on her elbows, arching her hips up against his mouth as he drove her high, faster than she remembered being possible. When he slipped his fingers under the hem of her knickers and looked up at her with a question in his eyes, she nodded, eagerly, panting.

“Where did you learn that?” She hadn’t intended for it to be so sharp, hadn’t intended for it to slip out at all, really. Yet he had quite quickly destroyed any doubts she harbored about his experience, and if she were honest, she found the idea didn’t sit entirely well with her.

He ducked his head, nuzzling her thigh as he drew her knickers over the garters and down to her knees. “Do you really want me to stop to answer that?”

“No.” Determinedly setting it out of her mind, she threaded her fingers through his hair, curling them into a fist as he set his talented mouth to her again. Then his fingers were inside her, first one, then two, curling up to press — “ _Yes_ ,” she hissed, right there. A small shock rocked her, hurling her into a hard, shuddering, breathless orgasm.

Nikola drew it out, with stroking pressure and tiny sparks, until she gasped, “Stop!” Slowly, he drew his fingers from her, pressing a kiss to her leg as he lifted his head, a self-satisfied sparkle in his eyes.

Feeling so undone was distinctly foreign to her. “Bloody hell, Nikola.” She gulped in a breath, slowly gathering herself again, and sat up properly, watching him as he rose.

“I have to give you something to remember me by, don’t I?” His smirk was slightly skewed, and for a moment he just looked at her.

The laugh bubbling up in her throat died on her lips, and she tilted her head. “Well, you’ve certainly done that.”

He nodded, leaning in, his hand on her hip light, his breath feathering over her lips as he stopped just short of kissing her. She pressed her lips to his, holding him to her with fistfuls of his shirt, tasting herself as she slipped her tongue into his mouth.

“I’m not made of china,” she muttered when he drew back, brushing a kiss beside her nose.

“I know.” He toyed with the strap of her bra, drawing it down off her shoulder, though his touch was still almost excruciatingly delicate.

“If I wanted a gentleman —” she scraped her teeth along his jaw — “I wouldn’t be with you.”

“Oh, now that’s just insulting.” His familiar, ironic undertone had returned, but he drew back, letting his fingers drift along her collarbone. “Is that meant to be a challenge?” The smirk on his lips was lopsided, not entirely so nonchalant as she suspected he intended it to be.

Helen swallowed against a sudden tightness in her throat. “No.” Trailing  her fingers over his chest, she began unbuttoning his shirt, a little more slowly than she might otherwise have, not looking at him. “I just want an enjoyable night with the dear friend I know and —” She inhaled, to cover the way the word stuck in her throat, and tried for playful again. “Besides, isn’t it the naughty ones who have the most fun?” Untucking his shirt, she slipped her fingers just underneath the edge of his waistband. If she were honest, it had been awhile since she’d been quite so blatantly provocative, and it brought a little thrill with it now.

He swallowed, trailing his fingers down between her breasts. “I suppose you would know a thing or two about that, wouldn’t you?” His voice was rough, slightly hoarse, and he cleared his throat.

Slowly, she unbuttoned his trousers and drew the zipper down, glancing at him very intentionally through her lashes. “Oh,  _far_  more than two.”

“Scoot back.” He lifted one knee up onto the bed, pulling off his shoes and socks as she shifted back to make room for him. “Take off —” he stopped, suddenly, just looking at her. She pulled her knickers completely off, flinging them away. They seemed to land somewhere near the dresser, though her attention was focused on the way he lit up, his smile a touch too tender to be called lascivious. His voice was much more gentle when he spoke again. “Are you planning to take your bra off? It’s in the way of the view.”

Helen chuckled, and reached behind herself to undo the hooks. With one hand she held it to herself as she drew her arms from the straps; “Tease,” he murmured, climbing fully onto the bed, reaching out to idly stroke up and down her legs.

“Tell me you don’t like it.” She arched her eyebrows at him.

“Oh, no, I  _never_  said that.” He drew his blunt human nails over her skin, and she offered him a soft grunt of appreciation. Nikola did it again, with a little more pressure, and she bit her lip, feeling her muscles fluttering. “ _Oh_ …” His gaze lit up with glee. “You did mean  _anything_.”

Quirking one corner of her mouth, she flung her bra the way of her blouse and skirt. His gaze darted to her chest, and he ran his tongue over his lips, digging his nails in again.

“Where did you learn that?” Nikola directed her own words back at her, a little faint but more coherent than she really wanted him to be.

_His grip on her hips just a little too tight, teeth scraping against her wrist as he sucked; there might be a bruise later to match the one just above her collarbone. The heady high of driving him so wild, of feeling his desire for her in such a visceral way, such a far cry from the too-careful lover he’d been before, even if she’d always suspected this side of him lurked under the surface, waiting to be unlocked. Briefly, she wondered how else the serum had changed them, bound them together… An uncomfortably hard thrust, his fingers tugging and pinching her nipple, pain and pleasure, discomfort and delight swirling together, and the thought was gone._

Helen scooted back slightly, swallowing. The name was low, harsh: “John.”

Nikola’s gaze clouded, and he lifted his hands from her legs to grasp her forearms, gently. “Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head. “Nothing like that. He never — I could have told him to stop, and he would have. At the time, I wanted to be with him.” Exhaling heavily, she looked Nikola in the eyes. “I don’t want to think about it.”

Slowly, he nodded, and leaned forward to press his lips to her forehead. She closed her eyes, allowing it — allowing him — to comfort her, just for a moment.

“I’m fine, Nikola, really.” She reached for him again, needing something besides her own thoughts to focus on, and pushed his waistband down over his hips. “Didn’t you want to do something more than ‘kiss with our clothes on’?”

“I thought we did.” The remark was playful, cocky even, but his tone was soft as he searched her expression, concern still swirling in his eyes.

“My turn.” Returning his gaze steadily, she let her hand drift back between them, to palm him through his shorts. He was mostly hard, certainly respectable, and she gave him a few experimental strokes.

He tensed, a delicious groan escaping his lips. “Helen,” was a dark murmur as he reached down to still her hand.

“What?” Tossing a lock of hair over shoulder, she tried to keep the slightly cross tone out of her voice.

“I don’t want —” A grimace passed over his face,and she loosened her grasp. “At least let me get my pants off.”

Helen let out an almost wry chuckle. She should have guessed: it was just like him to be worried about his clothing. Shaking her head, she brushed her fingers over him one last time before taking her hand away. “Go on, then.”

He shrugged out of his shirt, tossing it the way of her knickers. She began to unhook her garter belt as well, until his voice stopped her. “For God’s sake, leave those on.”

“If you insist.” She didn’t have a preference either way, so she left it.

“I do.” He ran his fingers up her thigh, lingering on the squares of skin above her stockings, brushing the garters delineating them.

Frustration at the one-sidedness of this endeavor was beginning to win. “Are you planning to properly undress at all?” The slight chill that had seeped into the air was settling uncomfortably over her heated skin, and she drew back the covers to at least partially worm her feet and legs underneath.

“Forgive me, Helen,” he leaned in to nuzzle her neck, nibbling, lightly brushing his hands over the sides of her breasts, “but you’re just so distracting.”

“Nikola.” She set a hand on his shoulder, drawing back slightly to examine him. “What’s going on?”

He looked away, absently brushing his thumbs over her skin, and she shivered a little, involuntarily. Arousal, irritation, and concern swirled together into an odd sensation, and she bit her lip, waiting.

He let his fingers wander over her breasts, lightly, leaving sensitized skin in their wakes. Her breaths sounded far too heavy as they mingled with his in the sudden silence.

“I know the concept of me not impressing is practically inconceivable, but it’s been awhile,” he finally huffed, still avoiding her eyes. “I want this to be as enjoyable as possible for you.”

An amused, incredulous exhale escaped her, and she arched her eyebrows at him. “You’re worried about  _that_? For heaven’s sake, Nikola, I don’t expect perfect. I didn’t even expect the orgasm you already gave me.”

He practically glared, dropping his hands to her waist.  “Now  _that_  hurts.”

She rolled her eyes, exasperation seeping into her tone. “Male egos. Even James took several tries to learn how to please me. And I certainly had no idea of your experience, or lack thereof, until now.” Raising herself up on her knees, she slid her hand down to his chest, and pushed none-too-gently. “Lie down. And take off your bloody trousers.”

His tongue darted out over his lower lip as he pulled off the rest of his clothing. “That was incredibly sexy.” The words were rough, a little breathless.

Helen blinked, surprise in the arch of her eyebrows and the crease in her forehead. “Really?”

He nodded, his pointed grin somehow both hesitant and sharper than usual. “Yeah.”

“Well then.” The heady sensation beginning to seep through her veins was familiar, though it had been such a long time — far too long, it suddenly seemed — since she’d last felt it. To have a man in the palm of her hand, pliant and willing and so eager for her… Drawing the blanket up over his legs as well, she let her hand wander over the skin of his stomach, watching the muscles flutter under skin, the clear liquid beading on the tip on his erection.

His heavy, almost harsh exhale broke the silence that had fallen over them. Sucking in a deep breath, Helen met his eyes as she finally closed her fingers around the hard, silky shaft.

“Helen,” he breathed.

“What?” Holding his gaze, she dipped her head to brush her lips over his abdomen, slowly kissing lower. He tasted somehow surprisingly human, soap and sweat, male musk and a tinge of something electric-singed filling her senses, and she momentarily berated herself for having somehow expected anything different.

“Helen, you don’t have to —” She took him in her mouth, swallowing through her gag reflex as the head hit the back of her throat. “— _Sranje_ , bloody —!” he hissed out.

Smiling around his cock, she hummed a wordless, cloying half-question that really wasn’t a question at all, and he fisted his fingers in her hair.

She could feel him tensing, holding himself still, trembling slightly under her hand. Slowly, she began to move her head, swirling her tongue over the glans on an upstroke, curling it around the shaft as she went back down.

More Serbian spilled over his lips as he bucked his hips up into her mouth, little tiny movements he couldn’t quite suppress. “ _Ljubavi_ ,” she caught, and “ _dušo moja_ ,” again, whatever those meant, and once or twice a groaned English, “Yes, fuck, Helen…” when she hollowed her cheeks. Purposely she teased him, drawing it out, revelling a little in having brought the usually suave Nikola Tesla to gasped curses.

After she-wasn’t-quite-sure-how-long, but far sooner than she’d have liked, his grip on her hair tightened. “Helen, stop. Unless you want this to be over.” His voice was ragged, his stomach tensed, and he thrust up — involuntarily, she thought — as she stilled. Slightly reluctantly, she lifted her mouth from him, trailing her tongue up the underside of the shaft. His erection throbbed under the barest brush of her fingers, and when she finally met his eyes again, she sucked in a breath at the hunger there.

It seemed to speak of more than pure lust, and the thought unsettled her. “Vampires don’t have superior  refractory periods?” she sniped, though with less snark and more breathlessness than she had hoped to show.

“We can find out.” He grinned, and for all his teeth were still blunt his eyes carried the glint of a hunter that had sighted its prey. She shivered ever-so-slightly underneath it.

“Come here,” he murmured, drawing her up to kiss her again, urging her with a hand on her shoulder to lie on the bed beside him, still far more gently than that look in his eyes had led her to expect. A moment he took to simply observe her, his gaze wandering slowly over what felt like every inch of her skin. She stretched for him, bending one knee, arching her neck to the side as she looked back at him.

“You don’t have to try to look…” He swallowed, shaking his head slightly, his voice low and without a hint of sarcasm. “You’re always breathtaking.”

She glanced away, her heartbeat suddenly quick and frantic in her chest. “What, I can’t simply want to?” It was sharp, sharper than was perhaps truly warranted.

“Of course you can.” He bowed his head, running his fingers down her side, only barely touching skin that suddenly seemed far too sensitive. “But forgive me for wanting to make sure you didn’t think you had to.” His tone was becoming cross, and he took a deep breath, lowering his head to nip at her collarbone, murmuring something so softly she couldn’t hear it.

“Pardon?” Running her fingers through his hair — God, she did love when it stuck up like that, perfect for tugging on — she drew his head up, to look at him.

“ _Samo dozvolite mi da te volim_ ,” he murmured, a little louder. Something almost melancholy lingered in his expression for a brief moment, before it was chased away by his usual smirk.

Helen rolled her eyes. “Are you going to tell me what that means, in English?” Aware of the temperature, she pulled the quilts up over his back. He offered her a grateful smile.

“You seem quite determined to keep me from making love to you.” He slung one leg over hers, bracing himself on one forearm, his erection pressed into her hip as he ran his hand lightly over her abdomen. “Do you really like the sound of my voice that much?” His self-satisfied smile broadened as he let his fingers wander over her hip and dragged his nails carefully down her thigh.

He was trying to distract her, she knew, and so she rewarded him with half a glare. “The next language I learn is going to be Serbian.”

“Just for me?  _Ma chère_ , I’m touched.” He leaned in to brush his lips over hers, to nuzzle her cheek.

It was… a cherishing, she admitted to herself, as she turned her head towards him, resting her lips on his jaw and closing her eyes. “Yes, you insufferable man.”

“Insufferable?” He nipped at her cheek and briefly tugged her earlobe between his teeth, as his fingertips trailed over the inside of her thigh. “Incorrigible, maybe. But I would certainly hope not insufferable…” His nails scraped gently along the sensitive groove between hip and leg. Seductive and teasing and so bloody cocksure, he murmured against her neck, “But if I am so utterly insufferable, I can always just… stop.” His hand falling back to his side, he drew back enough for her to see the mischievous sparkle in his eye.

“Come back here,” she demanded, with a touch of a growl to her voice, even as she untangled their legs, kicking the blanket back, to straddle his hips.

Nikola settled onto his back, setting his hands on her thighs and subtly stroking her skin. “And I didn’t even dare you to make me.” His grin was as broad as she had ever seen it, bright and precious and bloody infuriating.

She kissed it off him. Leaning down to press her lips to his, hard, she opened her mouth immediately to slip her tongue into his. He moaned as their tongues met, softly sliding against one another, teasing and taunting and leisurely touching. A hint of her own taste still lingered on his lips.

Nikola thrust his hips against her, his erection trapped between them providing welcome friction against her labia, and she realized she was grinding down onto him, too. Grasping his hair, she tilted his head back, to give herself better access to his mouth as she nipped at his lower lip.

Helen couldn’t remember the last time she’d wanted anyone quite this much, drawing in short, sharp little breaths through her nose so she wouldn’t have to part from his lips for air so soon, pressing herself close, letting him fill her senses and still craving more.

Pebbled and sensitive, her nipples brushed against his chest with every quick inhale, with every little movement of their bodies. He drew one hand up her body, to cup her breast, his grip tightening as she thrust against him more insistently. Then he rolled one nipple between his fingers, pinching it gently. A strangled sort of mewl escaped her, small tremors shaking her. She could come, just like this, right now, if he would only —

His fingers curled deeper into her thigh as she shifted higher on him and the head of his cock grazed her entrance. “Helen.” In between messy, fervent kisses that blended together into one, he gasped against her lips, “Helen, we should — I didn’t — I don’t have — a condom.”

Panting, she rested her forehead against his for a moment, though she could barely gather her thoughts. Still nuzzling his cheek, she murmured, “I haven’t any diseases, Nikola. Have you?”

Neither of them had even slowed the movement of their hips, though she tilted hers to provide herself with more friction to her clit. Unable to resist the pull to set her mouth to his skin again, she just avoided his lips, pressing another tonguing kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“No.” His pants quick and heavy on her cheek, he dipped his head to scrape his teeth against her jaw, his words rushed and breathy. “Not so much as a cold since 1886.” Continuing to play with her nipple, almost absently, he tugged on it, and she arched into his hand. “I was thinking more about —”

“I haven’t bled for a few years now,” she interrupted him, lightly biting at his cheek. “I don’t think we need to worry about that.”

“Oh,” he breathed against her neck, nibbling, kissing, and bucked his hips up with clear intent.

Reaching between them to position his cock, she gave it a small stroke and then sank down on him. She closed her eyes, voicing a guttural sigh, more half a moan, as he filled her, shuddering as sparks danced over her skin wherever they touched.

“Sorry,” he muttered, choked, a little breathless.

She clenched around him, laying her forehead against his cheek, pressing her breast into his hand. “Don’t you dare apologize.” Panting, she rolled her hips, missing the sensation of his electricity now as she chased her release. If he would just — “Again.” She tried to make it sound like the request it was meant to be, but it still came out short, sharp, hungry. “And pinch me. Please.” Reaching between them to tweak his nipple, she tugged his earlobe between her teeth.

He half-growled his groan, doing as she asked, driving his hips up into her. Pain-singed pleasure raced through her, and then she was shuddering, coming again, hard.

She bit down on his ear harder than she’d actually intended to, his skin between her teeth muffling her cry. He curled his fingers into her thigh, nipping along her neck down to her shoulder, and sunk his blunt human teeth in. The shock of sensation sent her higher, and she let go of his earlobe and buried her face against his neck as she shook, as she clenched around him and felt him coming, too.

A small aftershock made her shiver, and he hissed softly as he loosened his teeth from her shoulder. She moved to shift off of him, but he wrapped his arms around her, pulling up the blanket that had slipped down, forgotten in the heat of the moment. “Stay. Just for a minute.”

Canting her hips to let his softening erection slide out of her, Helen nonetheless set one hand on his chest and let herself relax into him, a silent acquiescence.

He pressed his lips to her shoulder, where she was sure he’d left two crescents of teeth marks, and she cut off the apology she suspected was coming with a quick, sharp nip to the side of his neck. He sucked in a breath.

“I hope you weren’t thinking of apologizing again. Unless you’ve broken skin.”

“No.” Nikola stroked her back, nuzzling the side of her head. “Though I’m not sure I can really take credit for that. I wasn’t exactly thinking about being gentle, towards the end.” She heard the regret in his tone.

Helen tilted her head slightly, to look up at him, trailing her fingers lazily up his neck and along his jawline. “Did it seem like I didn’t enjoy it?” she asked softly. “If anything, I should be the one apologizing to you. I didn’t exactly ask…” Shifting slightly to better see his face, she brushed her fingertips over his earlobe, though of course there wasn’t so much as a mark to be seen. “I’m sorry. I certainly didn’t intend to bite down quite so hard.”

“Did it seem like I didn’t enjoy it?” He threw her own words back at her, the beginnings of that oh-so-familiar smirk spreading across his face, and she chuckled quietly.

“Very well, then. We’re neither of us sorry.” Helen grinned at him.

He shifted beneath her, tilting his head to brush his lips across hers, a brief, chaste kiss. “ _Savršena si_ ,” he murmured.

She wrinkled her nose. “And I suppose you’re not going to tell me what that means, either?” Her previous exasperation was seeping back into her tone.

“Are you certain you want to hear it?” Uncharacteristically solemn, he gazed at her, meeting her eyes, searching her expression.

Her heart sped up, and she tamped down the vague, creeping suspicion that she’d never needed him to say it aloud. “Of course I do.” She shook her head at him slightly, bemused. “You of all people should know I prefer to have as much information as possible.”

“This is hardly a scientific experiment, Helen.” Yet, he paused for a moment, swallowed, and just as she was about to respond, said, “You’re perfect.”

For a moment, it simply hung between them, until she exhaled, sharply, a little scornfully. Nikola Tesla barely thought most of the human race worthy of speaking to his exalted genius. “No one is perfect, and you know that better than anyone. Besides, the idea of perfection is entirely overrated.”

“I never claimed that assessment was objective.” His words were short, clipped. “To me you are, or as close to it as anyone can get.”

She nearly smirked at the backhanded compliment, so very typical of him. “That’s the orgasm talking, I’ll wager.” Helen pushed herself up with the hand on his chest, and threw the cover back. “Go ahead and clean yourself up like I’m certain you want to, and try telling me again when I return from the lavatory.”


	4. Chapter 4

She took her time, if she were honest, cleaned herself thoroughly and washed her hands once more than was necessary. His words whirled and skittered through her mind even as she did her best to block them out. It was just Nikola pushing, that was all; he always pushed, just a little.

_“But they could carry information! Just imagine, no more cables needed to communicate at all! Signals simply traveling through air!” He gesticulated wildly, seemingly completely heedless of his audience now as he stalked about the laboratory, gathering various pieces of electrical equipment into his arms. “It is possible! I’m sure of it! I shall make it possible!”_

_“It’s only one dance,” he murmured, his hand not-quite-resting on her waist, “And John isn’t here. Where’s the harm in a dance?”_

_“But you could make it safe to inject, Helen,” he murmured in his manic near-whisper, and it was almost a plea, “I know you could.”_

Yet none of those things he hadn’t meant. Perhaps that was what lodged in her throat, closing it up as she shut the door to their room again, and turned to face him. That he always meant what he said, in some way or another.

Already in his pyjamas, Nikola sat on the bed, covers pulled up, though he peeled them back in an obvious invitation as she shed her coat and slippers. “I still find ‘perfect’ the most fitting description for what you are to me,” he said, softly. “You’ve given me my very identity, my heritage. If anyone can be counted as my peer, it’s you.”

She stilled, wrapping her silken robe a little more tightly around her middle, folding her arms over her stomach. “I see you’re just as humble as always.” It had neither the sting nor the teasing lilt she might have wished for it to, but she counted it a victory that she didn’t sound as shaken as she felt.

“But of course.” He grinned, as pointed and ironic as ever, and knot that had settled in her stomach loosened. “Come join me.” He patted the bed beside him, briefly, then smoothed out the sheets. “I’m starting to get cold again.”

Noting his slight shiver, she sighed. “Well, pull the cover back up, until I’m changed.”

He did as she suggested, though she felt his gaze as she pushed down her garter belt and stockings and pulled her nightdress out of her suitcase and over her head. She used the moment facing away from him to gather herself again. He seemed determined to upset her equilibrium this evening. He might care for her, but he had always been given to exaggeration and dramatizing things.

“I keep thinking your hair should be blond, when I see you in that,” Nikola murmured. She glanced down at her attire: high-necked, loose silk with a lace bodice and buttons up the front.

“It does look a bit Victorian, doesn’t it?” She tossed her hair over her shoulder as she climbed into the bed beside him. While some fashions of the bygone era belonged very firmly in the past, she wasn’t beyond a little nostalgia, and lace-trimmed silk was one of her indulgences.

“It brings back a few memories.” He shifted closer to her, turning onto his side to look at her, his head propped up on one hand. “Knocking on your door in the middle of night, needing your help because I’d turned into my vampire form and couldn’t turn back on my own… and at the sight of you in that thin slip of silk I almost forgot what I’d originally came there for.” Reaching out, he trailed his hand down her side, touching her so lightly she almost wasn’t sure he was touching her at all.

“Yes, I remember.”  _The way he looked at her, eyes wide, mouth half-open, brought a flush to her cheeks despite the chilly night, and she crossed her arms over her chest, self-consciously, a makeshift, half-hearted shield, before she looked at him again properly…_   A smirk hovered on her lips. “Good thing it didn’t need much explaining.” She tilted her head at him, a question in her eyes, set her hand atop his, and pressed it to her hip.

He smiled and leaned in, brushing his lips across hers. She returned his kiss, thoroughly, curling her hand around the back of his head to hold him to her.

“I can’t recall you ever being quite so… enthusiastic,”  he murmured, as they parted, sounding almost melancholy, but then his voice lowered to a pleased purr. “I like it.”

“I know what I want.” She arched an eyebrow at him slightly. “Besides, when have you ever had the opportunity to acquire any knowledge about my demeanor in the bedroom?”

“Does that mean you want me?” He sounded a little breathless, even as one corner of his mouth quirked up in a half-smirk. “The great Helen Magnus is finally admitting she wants the dashing Serbian genius?”

_“You — he’s courting you? But I —” Nikola suddenly stopped, looked away, exhaling slowly._  
_Her stomach swooped. Had he thought — “You what, Nikola?”_  
_“I wish you every happiness,” he said stiffly, not quite meeting her eyes._  
_“Nikola, what were you going to say?” she insisted, heart stuttering. If she’d thought Nikola wanted — then she’d never have said yes to John._  
_He straightened, tugging on his waistcoat, his shoulders stiff. “I was startled. I believed you and James were courting, but I see now I was mistaken.”  
_ _For the sake of her sanity, she believed him._

“You never admitted you wanted me,” she said, low and dangerous, far more accusatory than she perhaps had the right to be. “You only began flirting with me after I started walking out with John. How was I to know it wasn’t another of your petty little rivalries with him?”

His expression sobered, his gaze darting to the thin strip of bedsheet between them. His next words were slow, careful. “Why do you think we were ever rivals in the first place, Helen?”

For a split second, his words sunk in, and then she shoved against his chest. “Damn you!”

He rolled onto his back, a grimace twisting his features. Simmering fury muted the urge to apologize; besides, she couldn’t possibly have hurt him.

“I didn’t say anything, because —” His breath was heavy, his words slightly hoarse. “I knew, what your reaction was going to be. I wanted more from you than you did from me. I always have. I’m sorry — I’m sorry you can’t accept that, and I’m sorry I can’t always hide it.” He didn’t look at her.

“How dare you?” Her voice shook. “How dare you presume to know what I think, what I want for myself?”

“Do you want me, then?” He raised himself slightly, to look at her again, something brittle in the clench of his muscles, and a challenge blazing in his eyes. “Tell me how you want me, Helen.”

“That’s not fair, Nikola,” she murmured, defiantly, something inside her trembling as she met his gaze.

“Isn’t it?” His voice was deceptively soft, almost contemplative, a razor edge lurking just beneath. “Well, then,  _forgive_  me for forming my own hypotheses on the subject.” He dropped onto his back again, audibly fuming.

“You had enough data, you  _thick_  ass,” she muttered. Snow fell thick outside the window, swirling and dancing in the heavy wind, and she glared at it, because she hardly cared to look at  _him_. “Did I have to grab you by the lapels and plant one on you for you to get it? Forgive  _me_  for thinking you simply weren’t interested.”

He let out a sigh that was nearly growl. “Helen, you knew those rumors about me and Nigel —”

“— were just rumors, yes, I know. I knew then, too. Did Nigel ever tell you the rumors about us, though?” It was a cruel bait, and she didn’t wait for him to take it. “I know your sense of social niceties is lacking, and you made a point of ignoring what anyone thought — we both did. But I knew what was being said.” Swallowing, she inhaled deeply, and turned to lay on her back. “Do you know what Nigel said to me when he first met me? Not when you introduced us — after that. He said, ‘So you’re the girl everyone says is sleeping with him.’ Not ‘the woman studying to be a doctor’ — ‘the girl everyone says has whored herself out to the foreigner.’” She enunciated each word with painful deliberation.

“He didn’t use those words, did he?” She couldn’t read his voice.

“No.” Flat, blunt, but the memory of it still stung. “But I knew what he meant.”

Nikola cleared his throat, his voice strained. “I think once or twice he tried to tell me. I cut him off.”

“I didn’t expect him to tell you at all, to be honest.” At that point, she’d already almost entirely written off the idea of Nikola having any interest in her. “I expected to take some blows to my reputation, when I went to Oxford. I didn’t give a damn about propriety, and I was relieved you didn’t either. But if they were going to say that sort of thing, it might as well have been true.”

“What are you saying? That you  _wanted_  me to put a hand up your skirt while we were alone in the lab together?” His tone was mocking.

“Don’t be crass,” she bit out, something beneath her ribs cracking open, and she decided, to hell with it. “But yes, I was hoping you’d approach me. God, Nikola! Do you think I went to the theater with every scientist I worked with? Took them home to meet my father? Do you think I drank with them until the early hours of the morning and very nearly invited them upstairs?”

_The warm glow of the firelight softening the handsome angles of his face, wine softening her senses, as he made her laugh, less with the joke and more with sheer delight at the joy brightening his eyes. The dull ache between her legs, the awareness of her own skin, of every centimeter that separated them as she leaned forwards, gripping her glass only loosely, elbow on her knee, legs spread beneath her skirts like a man, as his gaze wandered time and time again to the neckline of her dress… until he stood, abruptly. “I’d best be going.”_  
_“It’s the middle of the night,” she said, “and we have a spare room.”_  
_He opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head far too hastily for her to take it as anything but personal. “I only really sleep well in my own bed.”  
_ _As he left, she shivered slightly in the cool air he let in._

Nikola exhaled, harshly. “Nearly isn’t the same as doing, Helen.”

“You’re deliberately missing the point.” He seemed able to constantly find new ways to make her cross with him.

“I couldn’t risk —” He stopped, closing his eyes.

“Risk what, Nikola?” She heard the honed edge to her own voice, the sheer, helpless fury at stupidity and haplessness and bloody cowardice. “Say it. Risk losing me? Do you really think me the sort of person to reject you as a friend for wanting me as a lover?”

“Isn’t that what’s happening?” Flat, a little choked, half a growl.

She froze, mid-breath, for a split second, and then forced the words across her lips. “Of course not.”

“Oh good.” His voice had taken on its typical ironic edge, but sharper than usual, darker. “Because if it weren’t for that, I’d almost say I’d been worried.”

“Don’t, Nikola.” It wasn’t quite a rebuke, but it was no reassurance, either. She wasn’t going to offer those, not after what an ass he’d been.

His breath filled the slowly growing silence, heavy, slightly shaky as he calmed — as they both did. The distance between them gaped painfully.

“Tell me something about yourself.” The words slipped unbidden past her lips almost before she had thought them: a request, almost a plea, open-ended.

He let out a half-formed laugh, slightly pained. “What is it you want to hear?”

“Anything you want to tell me.” She spoke quietly. “For all you talk, you’re capable of saying remarkably little.”

He was silent for several seconds, then several more, before he spoke. “I went home, about ten years ago, to Croatia. I saw my parents’ graves, and visited my sisters’ families. I pretended to be my own son, and my sisters all remarked on how similar ‘we’ were.” There was nothing joyful about his laugh.

About ten years ago… Shortly after Vienna, if she had to guess. Her stomach twisted. “You could’ve asked me to come with you.” She let her hand find his atop the blanket.

“I know. I knew.” He shook his head, curling his fingers around hers. “But I didn’t want — I wanted to go alone.”

“That’s what you’ve always been best at, isn’t it?” she said, softly wry, no real question in it.

He looked at her, then, the corners of his lips twitching upwards. “I liked to think I was.”

“You liked to think?” She arched her eyebrows at him. “Nikola Tesla, unsure of himself?”

“No.” And one side of his mouth tilted up, in that trademark rogueish smile of his. “But now I know better.”

“You’re admitting you were wrong?” she teased, a smile spreading across her lips. “I thought I’d never see the day.”

“I’m a scientist, Helen. Of course I have to reevaluate my hypotheses from time to time.”  His smirk was slowly growing to his pointed grin, to that special way of his to revel in the moment. He was shifting himself, closer to her; she found she didn’t mind at all. “But that doesn’t mean I was wrong, necessarily. My data was incomplete.”

“And what’s your data leading you to towards now?” It was a tease, barbed and possibly toxic, she knew, but it was familiar, and the way his eyes darkened, lashes fluttering, made any risk worth it.

He raised himself up again, on one arm, leaning over her, and for a moment she expected him to kiss her. But he just settled back down, flush against her side this time, his head nestled against hers. “Tell me something about yourself,” he echoed her earlier request, his voice reverberating with its metallic, vampiric tones.

She stiffened, instinctively. “Have you been —”

“Yes, I’ve been taking my medicine, and I don’t need to feed,” he murmured, brushing his lips over her shoulder, ever-so-softly. “I just want to be what I really am for a little while, with someone who accepts me.”

It was more plea than dare, and she exhaled, forcing herself to relax, finding herself more than able to. For all she didn’t trust him, in some things she still instinctively did. Most likely she would regret it one day, but for tonight…

“I sometimes wonder if we do the right thing, hiding Abnormals from the world,” she confessed. “They live here, too. Most of them pose no inherent threat to anyone. They deserve a place among us, as a part of our future.” She bit her lip. “But then I weigh the cost of a single, unique and precious Abnormal’s life against some far-off political goal, and I simply can’t — I won’t sacrifice them, not if I can help it.”

“Still an idealist.” She felt more than heard his voice, a low rumble against her skin, almost a purr. “It’s one of the things I’ve always loved about you.”

Her heart sped up. “I’m hardly an idealist,” she scoffed, shifting slightly to look at him.

Coal-black eyes stared back, a broad grin on his face. “Oh, but you are. You make the best of the circumstances you’re given, of course, but you’re always working towards a better world. You seek more, and not for your own benefit, but because you believe it’s worth seeking.” His tone was almost reverent, and her throat tightened.

“Don’t put me on some pedestal.” She shook her head, glaring slightly at him. “You know better than that. I’m just as human as —”  _As you are_ , she was going to say, and then realized her mistake.

He chuckled knowingly. “I remember how utterly disappointed you were at first, when you didn’t appear to have received any gift, Miss Magnus.” He let a little of his sharp Serbian accent seep into the last, and she darted her tongue out over her lower lip, almost involuntarily. He followed it with his eyes.

When he raised his gaze to hers again, she drew in a breath at the banked blaze there, that highlighted the cracks in his haughty veneer. “And I had always thought everyone despised my accent…”

“Not everyone,” she said quietly, her breath short, knowing he had already read it in her eyes, wanting to say it anyways.

He kissed her for that, sudden, breathless, with feeling she had hardly dared to believe he possessed, giving and so, so wanting. She closed her eyes and tangled her fingers in his hair, to keep him there.

Fumbling with the blanket, not breaking their kiss, he twisted atop her, setting one knee very deliberately between her legs, pressing it flush against her. Her nerves sparked at the contact, and she found herself already wanting, again. With a relieved groan, she bucked her hips against him. His vampire teeth scraped over her lower lip as he broke away, grinning wildly.

“Helen Magnus…” He took her in, his grin broadening a little more when she softly whined and shifted her hips, to get just a touch more pressure on her clit. Sucking in a breath, sliding one hand down to her thigh, he began again. “You  _want_  my hand up your skirt, don’t you?” Watching her carefully, he started to draw up the fabric of her nightdress.

She exhaled, perhaps a bit exaggeratedly. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

He stopped, and shook his head. Meeting her eyes, he asked in a breathless, almost reverent tone, “How could I not?”

Irritation at him stopping gave way to quiet unease at what might happen if she allowed him to continue. “I told you, Nikola, don’t put me on a pedestal.” It was purposely low, a warning, that grew in fire as truth she’d scarcely realized herself tumbled from her lips. “I don’t  _want_  a bloody gentleman, and I never have. And I  _especially_  don’t want someone who plays at being a gentleman because it’s what he thinks I want or somehow ‘deserve’.” Shifting back, away from him, she pushed against his chest, to give herself room to sit up.

He sat back on his heels, straddling her leg, and stared at her. The blanket fell from his back, cooler air rushing to fill the space between them. “How dare you compare me to that monster?” he spit out, a vampiric growl, no irony at all in his voice.

She avoided his eyes. “I won’t, as soon as you stop bloody looking at me like he did.”

Shock, then fury and pain flashed through his eyes, all in an instant. He shuddered, as she finally looked at him. “He never loved you, never  _really_  could have loved you.”

“And you think I don’t know that?” She bit out, shaking her head at him. Drawing one knee up to her chest, she set her chin on it, letting her hair fall partially in her face. Her skin tingled with the remainder of arousal, a heady cocktail slowly diluting itself. “I think he believed it was love, at some point. I believed it, too.”

“And you think James  _doesn’t_  look at you ‘like that’?” He pulled the blankets up over his shoulders, like a makeshift sort of cloak. Resentment lurked in the set of his jaw.

_A fleeting glimpse, that almost awestruck gaze, a quick blink and it was gone. A ring, far in the back of a drawer in James’ study, when she’d been searching for an old, misplaced file; an emerald that fit perfectly onto her finger, one that she’d carefully put back exactly as she’d found it, seven years ago already. The way he made love to her after she came back from a mission._

She swallowed, unable to hold his gaze. “I work with James. He’s seen enough of me to know better.”

He swallowed, too, twice, and she read doubt in the wrinkle of his brow, defeat in the slump of his shoulders, and desire blazing in his eyes. “Then let me see you, Helen.”

It was a plea, more than anything, and she took a deep breath, and slowly nodded. Straightening her leg, she shifted to lay down again, reaching out towards him.

He came to her softly, brushing his fingertips over her cheek, brushing his lips over hers as he pulled the blanket over both of them. He looked at her, really looked, coal-black eyes searching, examining, seeing, and she found them nothing but beautiful.

Deliberately, she took hold of his hand, and placed it on her thigh again, trembling ever-so-slightly, and his eyes lit up. He observed her as he slowly bunched up the fabric, drew her skirt above her knees. He licked his lips as he trailed his fingers to her knickers, dragged them along the edge, brushed his fingertips over her through the fabric. ‘Tell me what you want.”

“I want —” She swallowed.  _Let me see you._  “I want you to fuck me with your fingers.” It was deliberately crude; after all, he had practically begged… “I want to watch you lick them afterwards. And I want to know: who was your first?” It was a bit of self-torture, perhaps, but she wanted to know, so badly, needed to remind herself that he wasn’t hers, for all every word, every touch seemed to promise that he was.

He stilled at that question, but only for a split second. A grin burst across his face like a crack of lightning, bright and brilliant. Then he sobered again, somewhat, and began to trail idle (deliberate) patterns over her knickers, as she fought not to arch her hips into his hand. “I’ve been told it’s hardly polite to talk about previous partners while in bed with another.” It was soft, a little teasing, and Helen rolled her eyes.

“I don’t give a damn, and you know it.” Her words were rough, like her breathing. “If you don’t want to tell me, just say so.”

He met her gaze, then. “Molly was a prostitute. I wanted to learn how to please a woman, and she taught me. Rather well, it seems, if I do say so myself.” That infuriatingly self-satisfied smile made its appearance again.

“How altruistic of you.” She narrowed her eyes, heat flooding her veins. “And I suppose you got nothing out of these encounters?”

His smile vanished. “Oh, come on, Helen, don’t be like that. Of course we had sex.” His fingers still trailed over her, excruciatingly gentle. “But I really think she was getting the better deal out of it, she and you.”

“And all the other women you’ve slept with,” she added, pointedly, even as her chest seemed to tighten around her lungs at her own words.

He shook his head, his voice a touch hoarse. “There haven’t been any others.”

Helen tensed at that, her heart pounding enough for her to feel it heavy beneath her ribs. “I don’t see why,” —  _a lie_ , a corner of her mind whispered, as she just kept her shaky voice from cracking — “but that’s your business, I suppose.”

He continued, circling her clit, gently pressing against her entrance through the fabric. “Really, now, whom exactly do you think I was hoping to please, then?” Something soft fluttered behind the black of his eyes, as one of his talons scraped ever-so-gently over the skin of her inner thigh.  _Dear God_ , this man was going to break her.

“Don’t say things like that,” she whispered, the beginnings of tears and the height of lust heavy beneath her eyelids. Her hips bucked against his hand, of their own accord, and she ached to feel his fingers inside her. “Please.”

She felt his talons withdraw, though his eyes remained dark. “Why shouldn’t I?” he murmured fiercely. “You obviously don’t mind me doing ‘things like that’.”

She had no answer for him.

He pushed her knickers to the side and slid a finger into her, immediately curling it to press against that spot inside her, the one that sent tremors through her.

“Nikola…” She bit her lip, allowed her eyes to flutter shut, ran her hands up to her own breasts. It didn’t have to be more than sex…

“I’ve only ever wanted you, Helen.” It was almost fierce, as he pressed his thumb to her clit.

She shuddered — almost, so close. But she was far too tense; she could feel it, threading through clenched muscles and keeping her exactly where she was, allowing her no easy release.

Helen opened her eyes again, letting her hands fall to her sides. “Stop.”

Immediately, he stilled, and slowly drew his finger from her, carefully shifting her knickers back. She missed the contact as soon as it was gone, only just stopping herself from chasing his hand with her hips, though she shuddered with the effort.

“What’s wrong?” Watching her carefully, he rolled onto his side, beside her, and lifted his slick middle finger to his lips. Unable to tear her eyes away, no matter how much she told herself she needed to, she watched as he curled his tongue around it, and drew it slowly from between his teeth. He held her gaze as she allowed him to set a hand on her waist. “ _Dušo moja_?”

“That,” she muttered. “ Whatever that is. Among other things.”

“ _Ljubavi_ ,” he said softly, almost defiantly, “Why are you so threatened by my affection for you?”

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she blinked to keep them at bay, even as she set her jaw. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not threatened by it.”

He brushed his thumb over the corner of her eye, and showed it to her — it glinted under the soft light of the bedside lamp, wet.

She shook her head. “Just — go to sleep.” It was a plea, not a command, quiet, almost broken.

“Damn you, Helen Magnus,” he murmured, but there was no bite to it, as he reached across her to turn off the light. Afterwards, he settled onto his back again, rigid, with a choked sigh.

A moment, she wavered, and then turned towards him, reaching out to rest a hand on his stomach. “May I?”

“Go ahead,” he murmured, nearly immediately, and sighed again, soft this time, lingering, as she curled into him, as he wrapped his arms around her. “ _Dušo moja_ …”

“Tell me what that means,” she whispered, “please.”

“Go to sleep,” he said, “ _dušo moja_ ,” and there was almost spite in it this time.

She couldn’t say she didn’t deserve it. Trembling, settling her head on his chest, she closed her eyes.


End file.
